Find Your Fix

Tag: footwork

One common error is landing with feet way to wide. In order to stop that, we used constraint based training. Put some barriers where the athlete needs the help. Then, they will make the adjustment when the barriers are gone!

Be sure to jerk with your feet wide enough. One common error is to “tight rope” on the split jerk. This leads to instability and missed jerks. Practice your footwork with something between your feet to learn where they need to go. They should slide forward and back, not inward.

A big problem in the split jerk is landing with the front knee in advance of the foot. One great way to fix this, is to jerk from the split position. The back foot stays down, and the front foot just drives forward each time!

Louie has a problem jumping backwards. This causes other issues, such as landing on his toes and missing a lot of lifts out front. In order to get him to finish up and tall, we used some constraint-based training. By putting a piece of plywood behind him, we can get him to finish up.

Be sure to put it far enough away that the lifter won’t land on it, but lose enough so they know it is there!

Special thank you to CrossFit Excel for your hospitality.

Transcription

It’s Danny of The Lifting Fix. I’ve got Louie here with me. Louie has a problem; he keeps landing soft. He is landing on toes, landing soft. And we realized it’s not just he is not getting his heels down but he is jumping backwards. And since he is getting a behind the bar, he’s jumping backwards. He has to land on toes cause most people are not flexible enough to get your heels down three feet behind you.

So to fix that we’re getting him to just finish tall. So we’re going to bring in some constraints. So at California Strength this is what we call constraint based training. We’re gonna put barriers in the way so he’s not allow to do something. So to get him to finish up and stop stepping backwards.

Louie’s gonna lift his bar here in front of the wood. Of course you could use some weights or whatever. I’ll use a plywood. I wanna slide it here behind him. Use caution. Alright now, one thing you’ll notice is it is behind him, and he knows it’s there. But, the thing isn’t really that close. Even if someone jumps way back they’re probably not gonna jump back that far. However, it’s close enough for him to know it’s there and he’s gonna remember that it’s there.

So go ahead and snatch Louie. Make sure you finish tall and let’s keep your heels down. There it is. Alright. He didn’t jump more than a quarter of one inch. Best snatch of his entire life. Alright. And there is really no threat especially the lightweight. There is really no threat on landing on that wood. Ok. But he knows it’s there. Thank you Louie! Thank you Nick!

Foot Width can be a big factor. Alec had an issue of getting pulled forward on heavier lifts. This was partially due to his narrow foot stance. By widening his feet out, he is able to keep his chest up at heavier weights!

TRANSCRIPTION:

Male Speaker 1: All right [0:00:03] I have Alec with me at CrossFit Krypton. He was snatching earlier and we were talking about some different things that can really help him out. So go ahead and do a snatch and then we will talk about what we’re going to fix.

All right. So overall, things look really good. He has the right sequencing, getting his knees back out of the way. Everything looks pretty good.

But one issue that’s happening is as the weight is going to get heavier, he starts kind of [0:00:32] drop his chest and that’s a product of his stance. Set your feet up, just to set in here. He’s narrow in here which is OK. He has a lot of power there but the problem is because he’s so narrow, it’s a longer pull. So it starts to pull him forward as the weight goes up.

It’s not that he’s not strong enough to keep his chest up. It’s that some little thing in there is kind of prohibiting him from doing that. He’ PR clean is 355 pounds. He’s strong enough to pull on the bar. He’s just getting pulled forward because something is off.

First we’re just going to shorten the pull a little bit which will help him do that. He can move his feet out, just to here, just make it one or two inch of his foot and he can kind of slowly of that.

Now as he snatches there, it’s going to shorten the pull and it’s going to help him keep his chest up, even at heavier weight. Here we go. Yeah. With 135, it’s pretty minor but you can see it. It does shorten the pull a little bit, allowed him to stay back and keep his chest up.

So it’s not just yelling at somebody, “Keep your chest up, keep your chest up, keep your chest up.” Sometimes it helps to figure out why the athlete can’t do that and then allow them to fully use the strength they have. Thank you Alec, thank you Sean, thank you CrossFit Krypton!

Sometimes people have a habit of touching their knee down in front on the snatch or clean. To fix this, you need to land flat on your feet instead of on your toes! Here is a drill that will help!

Thanks to NEPA CrossFit for being a great host!

Transcription

Hey everbody I’m Danny Lehr with The Lifting Fix I’m at NEPA Crossfit. So we’re here and we’re gonna do a lifting fix with Sarah. She has an issue. When she would snatch sometimes she would kind of catch up her toes and then it would sometimes bring her down and one knee would touch the ground. And it wasn’t that the weight was heavy. She was just had a problem of going to her knees with a snatch.

The problem is she is just isn’t landing on her feet, on her heels and flat footed. So I was explaining to her, she should land more solid, more flat footed and that would help her not to fall down on her knee in that snatch. So all we did we step back form the bar with hands on the hips. And practice landing just a couple of times solid. Go for it. And again go louder. There we go we’re practicing. One more time. Practicing heels down. Ok. Landing flat footed not on her toes. And she steps up and snatch. Alright and you’ll see there. She lands on her heels. Let’s do one more. And down. There we go. Alright. Very Good. So if you have a problem of throwing down in to your knees when you snatch. You’re probably catching on your toes. Just work on. Get you heels down. Thank you Sarah! Thank you Liz!

It’s important to move your feet in order to get to full extension and catch in a solid, optimal position. If you have a problem lifting in concrete, this is a great drill that will help you to move your feet!

Transcription

The Lifting Fix I’m Danny Lehr. I’m with Arianna here. She has issue of not moving her feet. That’s kind of A common problem people have.When you don’t move your feet, you really struggle to extend the way you should, to finish the way you should. So we’re gonna see an example there of having not moving your feet in a lift. Arianna, just go ahead and snatch. There you go. And so you see she is kind of rocks to her toes and kind of rocks back down.

Here’s one way to fix that and get people to move their feet. You have something to move that to force them to do it. So let’s grab something handy. Put them nice and close together. The key in here she is not going to do a full lift, she is not going all the way and do a squat because I just want to get a little too risky. I want it to be safe as something like this can be.

You’re going to your power snatch and then a hang power snatch from this position landing on the plates. Here we go and then she step back down. And one from the hang. There we go. And so it’s kind of two things are fixed here. One is really kind of force you to finish up because you have to finish up to get on the plates. The other thing is, make sure she moves her feet. She obviously she has moved her feet. So then what we can do is slide them out of away and let’s see the after. Do a good snatch here with this. She wanted to use a lot more weight. I want her not to get hurt. There you go. Obviously the goal is not to move your feet dramatically. We’re not trying to teach people to do crazy donkey kicks, we just need to move your feet. Alright. Thank you Arianna! Thank you Miguel!